Adrian ordered a box of Pokemon cards in February. Yes, February. They were supposed to arrive in early March. Then late March. And then April or perhaps May. The endless slippage was incredibly frustrating.

Two days after we got the “April or maybe May” estimate, the package suddenly arrived. Pokemon card boxes are random so you never know what you get (other than the one “front cover” card) but this was a good one. There were several duplicates, yes, but also all of three “shiny” cards. It seems it was worth the wait.

When dinner is done, the dinner bell is rung. It has a wonderfully deep sound that carries well through the house. But it doesn’t do well through closed doors. Neither does my voice.

I used to go upstairs to knock on Ingrid’s door to call her to dinner, but that got tiring quite quickly. Especially when the answer I got was in the vein of “I’ll be down soon, I just have to win this battle”. Not only did I do the work of cooking dinner – I then had to chase down people to come and eat it.

The obvious, practical solution to this was a pair of remote-operated doorbells. The buttons are downstairs in the kitchen, next to the singing bowl. The bells themselves are upstairs in Ingrid’s and Adrian’s rooms. They each chose their own ringtones. One sounds like a bunch of birds tweeting; the other is a more traditional melody. Sort of like 19th-century servants’ bells, but the other way round.

Mostly the bells mean “dinner is ready”, but not always. Today Ingrid rang Adrian’s bell when she wanted him to bring down the iPad (that normally “lives” downstairs but is often “forgotten” upstairs) and had sore leg muscles from gym class. Snarky comments were exchanged, both about “forgetting” the iPad, and about using the bell instead of walking.

It’s a lovely spring day so Adrian and I went out walking. Of the whole family, he is the most willing to join me when I want to go out – especially when the walking involves geocaching, or grilling sausages. Today we picked off three easy caches in the nearby Grimsta nature reserve, with Adrian in charge of the GPS unit.

Adrian found a few rocks to climb, and plenty of sticks. He just never tires of sticks. There is so much that they can be used for! Pick them, carry them, peel them, whack the ground with them…

I found the season’s first hepatica flowers.

Adrian made this rhino sculpture, liked it but had no use for it, so he gave it to me. Now it sits on my desk because I also like it but have no real use for it.

Part of the role of a parent is to accept gift of random crafts, apparently. Drawings and paintings, embroidered pieces of cloth, pin cushions, decorated candle holders, miscellaneous objects made of paracord or steel wire or wood…

I guess the rhino can stay here until it gets replaced by the next thing.

Adrian is home from school because of a runny nose, but essentially not the least bit sick. So when the sun is shining bright, we can go for a walk in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday.

Mello is Melodifestivalen, a Swedish song competition where the winner gets to represent Sweden in the Eurovision song contest. Ingrid used to be a fan but has outgrown it, while Adrian still cares.

I wouldn’t say I hate it, and in these pandemic times I can’t even say I have better thing to do with my Saturday evenings, but I don’t much enjoy it either. But Adrian really wants company – watching TV on his own is just no fun – so I sit there and knit and follow the competition just enough so I can converse with him.

Today was the finals, which Adrian celebrated a Mello-pink donut. (The previous, less important shows only merited pink Mello smoothies and sometimes just fruit snacks.)

Adrian’s favourite breakfast is a cherry tomato omelette. I make one for him and me almost every weekend. Eric is not that fond of eggs for breakfast, and Ingrid we rarely even see before 11 on weekends, so it’s just Adrian and me.

I’ve never quite gotten the hang of proper French omelettes, which you are supposed to keep stirring all the time. When I do that, I end up with scrambled eggs… which we also love, but not when we want an omelette. The fact that our omelettes are made of at least 5 eggs probably doesn’t help. My omelettes are more like the Spanish and Italian ones: thick fluffy ones, filled with stuff, slowly cooked under a lid. But with tomatoes instead of potatoes.

Cherry tomatoes are on the “must always have at home” list only because of these omelettes.

Two of Adrian’s favourite foods are dumplings and spring rolls. He loves Asian buffets – not for the wide variety of food but for the chance to stuff himself with dumplings.

He’s been asking for a while now if we could make dumplings at home. I’m not very interested in meals that are more crafts than cooking. For the same reason I’m not very interested in making sushi, although I like eating it.

Eric was willing to give it a go, though. The whole project took hours. First, making the dough and the filling. And then all this rolling and filling and shaping… Adrian liked the first steps, but the assembly part was too tedious for his taste, so I had to step in and help out to get them done in time for dinner. It was pretty tedious; I can understand that he didn’t enjoy it much.

The result tasted good. But store-bought frozen dumplings are also good, and I’m really not sure if these tasted two hours better.

Adrian loved them though, and immediately started talking about making them again. If we ever do, we need to find a faster way of filling and shaping them.

Minecraft is perhaps not the most exciting game, but it’s one that both Ingrid and Adrian keep returning to. In reality it’s a social platform more than a game. It’s not the gameplay that attracts them. The game is just something to do while they talk to their friends. Like in previous generations people would meet over a game of bridge, or pool. But corona-friendly.

Adrian and Eric made swirl buns of various kinds: cinnamon, poppy seed, chocolate and orange peel. I like buns and all kinds of other cakes but the desire to eat them rarely grows strong enough to make me bake. I don’t even know why. It’s not that I dislike baking, or find it difficult. I just… don’t do it. How nice it is to have family that does.